Development of a novel, small scale cold screw press protocol for rapid soybean processing and coproduct evaluation

The aim of this study was to develop a novel, small scale screw press protocol for rapid evaluation of newly developed soybean varieties with smaller sample sizes. Using commercially available and custom-made processing equipment, a highly repeatable 500 g lab-scale protocol was developed. Four experimental seed composition lines (V2070, V1328, V1515, V1810) and a commodity soybean variety (Patriot) were processed in triplicates and three coproducts namely, Low fat pellets (LFP), High fat pellets (HFP) and oil were generated. The processing characteristics of soybean varieties with different seed compositions were ascertained with low standard deviations (<10%). The generated coproducts were thoroughly evaluated for their compositional characteristics (crude fat, crude protein, crude fiber, ash, and moisture content), fatty acid profile (FA), amino acid profile (AA), peroxide value (PV), and thiobarbituric acid (TBA) value. Generated coproducts not only retained the desired nutritional characteristics present in raw soybean kernels but were also comparable to the industrial samples in terms of final compositions. The proposed 500 g cold press protocol can be a valuable tool for the soybean processing industry and academia, enabling quick processing and efficient characterization of newly developed soybean cultivars with limited sample sizes.